“Climate variability” is the new “climate change”

During an Aspen Institute forum earlier this month Gore blamed oil, auto, steel and other industries for infusing pseudo-science into the climate science debate. In part, Gore said:

“When you go and talk to any audience about climate, you hear them washing back at you the same crap over and over and over again. There’s no longer a shared reality on an issue like climate even though the very existence of our civilization is threatened.

“It’s no longer acceptable in mixed company, meaning bipartisan company, to use the god—- word climate. It is not acceptable. They have polluted it to the point where we cannot possibly come to an agreement on it.”

You may hate Gore, but he’s right about this at least. One cannot speak or write about climate change today without immediately polarizing an audience (especially conservative white men).

I personally know climate scientists from Texas universities who no longer give talks to the public about “climate change,” but rather use the term “climate variability” in an effort to defuse some of this skepticism. Expect to hear the term more.

It’s not hard to understand why. A recent poll found that 69 percent of Americans believed it’s at least somewhat likely that some climate scientists have falsified research data in order to support their own theories and beliefs.

It has become de rigueur to mock the notion of climate change.

Perhaps more amazingly, 57 percent of respondents to that poll believe there is significant disagreement within the scientific community on global warming. There isn’t.

Oh there are indeed some scientists who don’t buy into the climate models, but there are very few active, publishing scientists who do not believe elevated levels in greenhouse gases from human activities are primarily responsible for rising temperatures during the last century.

The notion that there’s a significant debate about this fundamental view of climate science is just wrong. If you disbelieve me, you should get out and speak with a lot of climate scientists. I have.

If there were scads of scientists (atmospheric, climate, geology or otherwise) in Texas who thought modern climate science is bunk I’d be the first reporter in line to interview him or her. Rather today’s debate is about the details, and how much more it’s going to warm, from some to a lot.

Let us all hope it’s not a lot. That kind of “climate variability” would make this summer, with its heat and drought, a fond memory to future generations.

I’d settle for a bit of variablility right now; day after day of “hot and dry” is starting to get my dander up.

I would like to point out that even those climate scientists who are arguing for different models (e.g., Spencer) agree that the average temperature has gone up due to anthropogenic CO2. And, of course, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project has found that the much-maligned “hockey stick” is correct.

Fareed Zakaria said today that the danger of modern media is that people look to sources that only confirm their own biases. It’s hard for scientists to compete for the public attention with a 24-hour news cycle geared to tell them what they want to believe.

One of my favorite movies came on last night. Blazing Saddles (far more than one scene around a campfire.

Today’s announcement of (snicker) “climate variability” and the cadre of climate theologians (if you use that phrase, you owe me) that continue to parrot the gospel of manmade climate variability (really???) remind my of the scene where Governor William J. LePetomane is sitting in his office with various staffers and Hedley Lamarr.

To whit:“We have to protect our phoney baloney jobs here, gentlemen! We must do something about this immediately! Immediately! Immediately! Harrumph! Harrumph! Harrumph!”

As before, I will point you to this articlewhich reminds us that funding for climate change research has decreased over the past fifteen years. Their last paragraph pretty much says it all:

“To sum up: climate research doesn’t pay well, the amount of money dedicated to it has been shrinking, and if the researchers were successful in convincing the public that climate change was a serious threat, the response would be to give money to someone else. If you come across someone arguing that scientists are in it for the money, then you can probably assume they are willing to make arguments without getting their facts straight.” (emphasis added)

And, in a (probably futile) effort to prevent your inevitable (because it is what you’ve tried before) attempt to link me to the shibbolithic “gravy train”, I will remind you that I do not work for the government and get no funding from it. I am a neutral observer in this field.

It’s funny how no climate change supporters will talk about how the northern hemisphere was warmer during the medievel warm period (900-1200AD)than it is today. It’s now theorized that Greenland was given that name at the time because it actually WAS a green-land and was not given that name to simply entice people to move there. Also, starting around 1300AD, the Little Ice Age began. This lasted until around 1850-roughly the same time we started keeping track of weather data. The earth was already warming then, and perhaps will continue to do so for another couple hundred years–part of a NATURAL cycle. Climate change supporters will never believe one word I’ve written, just as they ignored those 3,000 hacked emails debunking climate “science”. Oh well, life goes on….

There’s a book by Bill Bishop, The Big Sort, that talks about the increasing polarization in American life. Basically, it’s so much easier to align ourselves with like-thinking persons that we simply become less responsive to different views. From the Amazon description:

Pulitzer Prize–finalist Bishop offers a one-idea grab bag with a thesis more provocative than its elaboration. Bishop contends that as Americans have moved over the past three decades, they have clustered in communities of sameness, among people with similar ways of life, beliefs, and in the end, politics. There are endless variations of this clustering—what Bishop dubs the Big Sort—as like-minded Americans self-segregate in states, cities—even neighborhoods. Consequences of the Big Sort are dire: balkanized communities whose inhabitants find other Americans to be culturally incomprehensible; a growing intolerance for political differences that has made national consensus impossible; and politics so polarized that Congress is stymied and elections are no longer just contests over policies, but bitter choices between ways of life. Bishop’s argument is meticulously researched—surveys and polls proliferate—and his reach is broad. He splices statistics with snippets of sociological theory and case studies of specific towns to illustrate that while the Big Sort enervates government, it has been a boon to advertisers and churches, to anyone catering to and targeting taste.

This just doesn’t apply to climate change; it’s the new American reality.

The simplest way to debunk Al Gore is simply to look at the way he lives his life. If he is really concerned about “global climate variability”, wouldn’t he change the way he lived? Wouldn’t he endeavor to be a role model for reducing energy consumption? Please, someone defend his profligate use of energy and his massive “carbon footprint.”

It’s not that some of us don’t believe an acorn fell, it’s that some of us don’t believe the sky is falling. Al Gore believes the sky is falling/plummeting/crashing down, but his (and others’) reactionary claims (Hurricane Katrina=Global warming!).

Don’t get me wrong. Al Gore is certainly an intelligent man. Ever since he invented the internet, he’s focused a lot of his efforts on carrying the gospel of global warming. The problem is the best scientists of our times sometimes tend to look like dolts 50 years later. I’m still waiting for that new Ice Age I kept hearing about in elementary school. And is there even an ozone layer left? I’m pretty sure by now it is 50% depleted and everyone who steps outside immediately gets radiation sickness.

Global warming adherents are their own worst enemy by making outlandish claims about the consequences of something that is very minute–relative to both the age of the Earth and the ability of science to quantify.

3) The ozone layer is still suffering, but has been improved thanks to the efforts of the scientists who found the problem and brought it to the world’s attention. The chemicals involved have a very long residence time in the atmosphere, and so the hole will heal only very slowly.

Tell it to Richard Lindzen, who is on the record as saying that AGW is correct. And tell it to Roy Spencer, who has said “Frankly our data set agrees with {the CRU data set}, so unless we are all making the same mistake we’re not likely to find out anything new from the data anyway.”

As a matterm of fact since about Nov 2008, the planet has been cooling and the oceans have been receding.

You do know that a decade is longer than three years, don’t you?

As long as those are the narratives the democrats like to embrace

And at last your intrinsic bias comes out. You do not believe in climate change because the Democrats do. Got news for you – the Democrats also believe in America, motherhood, and apple pie.

JohnD,
Now you are simply misleading people.
What Lindzen and Spencer say is that the warming we are experiencing is not dangerous or unusual. Lindzen has stated that no significant warming has occurred since 1979.
You are the first to call anyone who dares disagree with you a liar, and you show your shallow bigotry by persisting in calling skeptics ‘deniers’.
I wonder why you have the need to mis-state what others say and call so many people ‘liar’ while you engage in what you engage in?

Yes, providing people with links to the direct attributions (as opposed to blog articles about newpaper articles about half-remembered interviews twenty years ago) is so clearly a case of “misleading people”.

What Lindzen and Spencer say is that the warming we are experiencing is not dangerous or unusual.

Lindzen has stated that no significant warming has occurred since 1979.

And the data disagrees with that statement (BTW – got a cite? Or should we just take your word for what he says?).

You are the first to call anyone who dares disagree with you a liar,

Really? Care to point out an example?

and you show your shallow bigotry by persisting in calling skeptics ‘deniers’.

Pot calling the kettle black, bub. There is an unsubtle difference between “skeptic” and “denier”. A skeptic is someone who is willing ot be convinced by the evidence; a denier is someone who will never be convinced, no matter how compelling the evidence. The key difference between them is that a skeptic can tell you exactly what test will show his alternative to be wrong, whereas a denier cannot.

I wonder why you have the need to mis-state what others say and call so many people ‘liar’ while you engage in what you engage in?

Given that I have done neither of those things, it seems that you should be asking yourself that question.

The old saying “seeing is believing” doesn’t work for someone with a vested interest in not. Keep trying though Eric, it’s a job and appearently one with a bright future. Has anyone ever studied what corelation exists between the depth of a persons feeling that climate change (to hell with the variable verbage) is just a great left wing conspiracy and the number of hours they listen to Rush each week?

For those unwilling to click links: the first article is about CERN’s CLOUD experiments, which could show that clouds are formed by cosmic rays, and that the various ice ages correspond to periods of high cosmic radiation; while the second is about satellite data that shows that heat is escaping the atmosphere faster than the climate models assume.

The latter was brought up on July 29; here’s my response: The article was written by James M. Taylor of the Heartland Institute; they specialize in painting scientists as “alarmists”. The author of the original paper (Spencer) gives a much less histrionic overview of the paper and its import in his blog at:

Perhaps the most important sentence in the article is this: “Spencer agreed that his work could not disprove the existence of manmade global warming.” (emphasis added)

Please remember that Spencer agrees that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are driving a change in temperature. Where he disagrees with the other scientists is in the role of clouds and other factors; Spencer holds that these effects have been under-estimated.

As to the former link, how gagged can the scientists be when they released this in 2009: “CLOUD has been running since 2006 and proved that cosmic rays bombarding Earth’s atmosphere may have an influence on the amount of cloud cover through the formation of new aerosols (tiny particles suspended in the air that seed cloud droplets).”

And this in 2010? And this in 2011? And perhaps you are familiar with the idea of an embargo? The article clearly states that there is a paper in press, and it is generally considered to be good manners not to leak the results.

So Taylor isn’t wrong, you just don’t like the fact he is the one delivering the message.

I guess it would be better if he made a movie full of trumped up conlusions and absolutely false if not made up “evidence,” even going so far as to lift computer generated scenes from other movies to try to alarm audiences. Maybe he would be a better messenger if he had the bully pulpit of the executive office to deliver his message, whether it was accurate or not. Maybe he needs to assault his hotel maid to better get his point across. I mean, that is if character is an issue with you.

So Taylor isn’t wrong, you just don’t like the fact he is the one delivering the message.

No, what I don’t like is that Taylor has twisted a potentially interesting paper to meet his political objectives. Contrast Taylor’s hysterical write-up, full of cacodemonic specters and umbrage, to that of Spencer, which (mostly) focuses on the science. From taylor’s brayings it is clear that he hasn’t the training to understand what the science says – but that is irrelevant because, in his schema, the science doesn’t matter; only gaining power does.

I guess it would be better if he made a movie full of trumped up conlusions and absolutely false if not made up “evidence,”

Strange – the climate scientists (you know – the ones who are in the best position to judge because this is their work) seem to agree that the movie is reasonably correct. They do point out some errors, but nothing that would rise to the level of “trumped up conclusions”.

Maybe he needs to assault his hotel maid to better get his point across. I mean, that is if character is an issue with you.

Character is always an issue, and you are clearly demonstrating yours.

Thanks for the links. My google fu failed me on the bit about CERN’s blackout, and that explanation makes sense. I still suspect that the data supports Svensmark’s theory, but we’ll see.

And as for your criticism of Taylor: now you know how the rest of us have been feeling about Gore et al. and their claims of Apocalyptic Global Warming. You have my sympathy, as you’re going to have to put up with it until the idiotic policies are all swept away.

I agree that Gore is a politician of the first water (this is not a compliment) and that he is pushing a specific policy agenda. IMHO, it is far too early to talk about geoengineering as the tests for those schemes have thus far yeilded ambiguous results at best. And you may recall that my position on reducing CO2 is that the best way to start is with improving efficiency, as that will both reduce emissions and costs (for osme strange reason many soi disant “conservatives” are against this).

As to “idiotic policies”, perhaps you could be more specific? What policies have been instituted that you object to?

Al deserves his fair share of the credit for much of the hyper-polarization surrounding this and many other political issues. His recent speech antics demonstrated his own identity-protective cognition issues, the same ones referenced in the linked research.

I’ll have to admit that I’m still kind of undecided on this subject. On one hand I know man’s capacity to ruin nature in all types of interesting ways. On the other hand I’m cautious around types with a “trust me I’m important” attitude that talk down to you.

What I can follow is who has a stake in their own opinion being deemed fact. Gore & Co. have their carbon credits and million dollar speech and movie engagements that they’re fighting to keep running. The Denial team have their need to keep being allowed to drill for oil and drive SUVs to soccer games without feeling bad. Both sides seem tainted to me, quite honestly.

And I do agree with the consensus here that public discourse has been tainted by ad hominem-based rhetoric and everyone insinuating that the other team isn’t shooting straight. Maybe that’s why it’s harder than usual for me to make my mind up on this subject? Who knows…

The problem is that the science of the topic (which is relatively clear and has been settled for some time now) is being conflated with the politics (which are never clear and are rarely settled). Many of those who try to attack thte science do so because they think that it will help with thte political process.

And your counter-argument is what, exactly? I have pointed to the papers that show that the science has been settled since 1896 (at least in the broad details). All you have done is accuse me of misquoting.

fact: current science cannot predict with any certainty even the total number of variables affecting the question of what changes the climate may experience in the future, much less predict the outcome of any actual change in climate.

fact: even if a direction of climate change could be predicted accurately, the EFFECTS of such change cannot be predicted, in any manner, whatsoever.

fact: climate science reporting and ‘consensus’ opinion over the last decade has been driven by sensationalism and funding, which has proven to have resulted in false data and misleading reports from all sides of the argument.

conclusion: until these facts are no longer true, there is zero point in spending dime one attempting to ‘counterract’ potential global warming, i mean climate change, i mean climate variability… you get the point.

So the latest rebranding effort to sell the Edsel of science, AGW is ‘variability’?
Eric, how many rebrands does this make?
Three? Four? More?
Is the AGW movement now going to assert that the climate was not variable prior to the industrial age and get away with it?
What is it about the AGW movement that despite its complete failure to make meaningful predictions, to implement even one successful policy, and its need to rename itself every few years that still gives it credibility?
As to that cute little paper claiming that all of this denialism is due to evil white men, I wonder how cute that paper would have seemed if they had substituted ‘black men’, or ‘jews’ in the place of CWM?
Dehumanizing the opposition is a tried and true tactic, but it often ends rather badly. Perhaps it is time for some self-reflection by thoughtful people in the AGW community.

Nice strawman arguments, hunter. As you should know by now, scientists claim quite explicitly that the processes that we see today are the same ones that have been operating over the history of the Earth. They also take great interest in seeing how variable climate was in the pre-Industrial era.

As to the sociology paper, it is interesting how you assume that white men are evil (that phrase never appears in the actual paper; it is therefore your personal gloss). If you read the paper, you will see that they used Gallup poll data, which does include classification questions about race/ethnicity. Thus, the scientists did not only look at the data for white males and claim a relatoinship; instead, they looked at the data for many groups and found the white males to be anomalous.

Eric,
The AGW movement is losing in the pr battle for the same reasons the eugenics movement ultimately lost: A social movement tooka great scientific advance, evolution, and made wild social demands based on the science.
AGW took climate science and turned it into an apocalyptic cult with tipping points, run away greenhouses, sea level rises inundating our Coasts in mere years, crazy claims about super storms, etc. etc. etc.
The AGW movment is losing because average people know the smell of bs, and they know the stench of bs is coming from the likes of Gore, Romm, Mooney, Hansen, etc.

JohnD, The real strawman is that the physics of CO2 means we are facing a climate crisis. the climate is not doing anythign it has not been diong, as you point out, throughthe history of the Earth.
Additionally, the AGW demands for mitigation have been a total waste of effort, as as have each and every treaty and conference inspired by the AGW community.
JohnD, the paper demonizes white men. It gives fuel to the insane idea currently popular with a growing group that to be white and conservative is by definition bad.
Just substitute ‘black men’ in the paper for CWM, and see if the paper gets published. I am sick of racist bs, and I am tired of the mental gymnastics defenders of racism go through to rationalize their particular racism.
If you want to parse away and pretend it does not, I do not really care.

Hunter, if it is the politics associated with AGW that you despise, then why attack the science? And if you must attack the science, then why do it so badly?

Please point out where in the published literature a scientist has said that it will be catastrophic. Don’t point me to hearsay (e.g., an article on a converstaoin that was heard twenty yearsa go but not reported until now); show me an actual paper from Nature, Science, Geochemica et Geocosmica Acta, or the like.

As to the paper “demonizing” white men, how does it do so? Read the paper for comprehension instead of letting your confirmation bias get in the way. The paper did check to see what bias existed in black men and found that their bias was less than that of white men. In other words, you are claiming racism where none exists.

JohnD,
Who is attacking the science?
The people who were exposed in climategate.
You always complain about the published literature, and that is the biggest strawman of all.
That false distinction allows Hansen Romm Schmidt Mooney etc. to make crazy claims about the end of the world based on their positions, and then folks like you dismiss it since it is not ‘peer reviewed’.
That fool, IANVS, who spams here touts the most ridiculous extreme and paranoid crap as if it is true, like fundie interpreting the Revelation.
I have never attacked the science. I have attacked bs’ers posing as scientists.

Eric,
Did you ever once interview a person like McIntyre, or Mosher who did the work to dissect climategate? I don’t recall.
Or Salby who is revisiting the assumptions about the carbon cycle?
Or Spencer lately, with his newly published work?
Have any of your colleagues done any actual reporting on climategate, and not simply allowed those implicated in it to tell them what to say?

You are. The sociological paper comes to a conclusion that you don’t like, so you try to claim that it is racist when it is not. The climate papers come to conclusions that you do not like, so you try to claim that they are fraudulent. Because you cannot fight facts with facts (lacking both the ability and the facts), you resort to smears and innuendos.

The people who were exposed in climategate.

You seem to have forgotten that the only thing exposed in “climategate” was sloppy note-taking.

You always complain about the published literature, and that is the biggest strawman of all.

Ah, yes – it is so unfair to ask the critics to rise to the level of the scientists. And asking them to publish their ideas in peer-reviewed literature is so mean!

That false distinction allows Hansen Romm Schmidt Mooney etc. to make crazy claims about the end of the world based on their positions, and then folks like you dismiss it since it is not ‘peer reviewed’.

That fool, IANVS, who spams here touts the most ridiculous extreme and paranoid crap as if it is true, like fundie interpreting the Revelation.

And again the quality of your rebuttal exposes the depth of your thought. Rather than attack IANVS’ ideas, you attempt to attack him. The former is a mark of astuteness and ability; the latter, of doltishness and desparation.

I have never attacked the science. I have attacked bs’ers posing as scientists.

No, about all yo have done is cast aspersions as if they were fact, hoping to muddy the waters enough to prevent the rest of us from seeing you for the rabid poser that you are.

Eric,
The AGW movement is losing because they are, like the eugenics movement of 100 years ago, selling bs.
The world is not going to experience a tipping point (as Hansen claims). The world is not going to have the Himalayan glaciers melting in 24 years, as the IPCC claimed. The oceans are not rising dramatically or oddly (as many climate scientists have claimed). The Arctic has had had significant periods of low ice conditions in the measurable past.
Salby is publishing a paper challenging the assumptions of how CO2 is measured in the atmosphere. Spencer, Lindzen Pileke, Sr. have all challenged in the peer reviewed literature many of the claims that JohnD, IANVS and others here claim are settled. You might want to check in with Dr. Curry again and see what she is up to. Or follow up with Pielke, Jr. and see how the AGW demands for AGW, along with the AGW claims about floods or storms increasing hold up when measured against facts.
The only people attacking science are those who refuse to admit there is more to the story than the Hansen/Gore/IPCC scary story.
Too bad good journalists who could have made their career showing the real depth of the story chose to remain on the sidelines as cheerleaders.
There have been other times when small groups of loud people defended the consensus with great effect. The defenders of Lysenko, for instance. Or those defending the Piltdown man. Or the eugenics promoters. All were highly educated, highly placed and politically powerful.
JohnD INAVS, Mooney, and many others are in great company there.

So for believers to
Now JohnD,IANVS,and other believers want to call that attacking the science.

Salby is publishing a paper challenging the assumptions of how CO2 is measured in the atmosphere.

Spencer, Lindzen Pileke, Sr. have all challenged in the peer reviewed literature many of the claims that JohnD, IANVS and others here claim are settled.

Let’s see what they actually say, as opposed to what you think they have said.

Pielke:
“There is a need to minimize the human disturbance of the climate by limiting the amount of CO2 that is emitted into the atmosphere by human activities, but the diversity of human climate forcings should not be ignored.”
In other words, he agrees that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, that anthropogenic CO2 is responsible for climate change, and that it needs to be limited. Sounds like he agrees that the basic science is settled.

Spencer:
“Overall, the results presented here indicate consistency with the estimated UAH LT trend of +0.052 ± 0.07 K decade1 for the entire tropics. With a corresponding surface trend of +0.125 K decade1, the ratios of the present versions of UAH, sonde and reanalyzes tropospheric warming trends versus the surface trend are less than 1.0 while for RSS the ratio is 1.2.”
In other words, the data is correct, the world is warming.

As I have said before, where Pielke and Spencer differ from other climatologists is that Pielke thinks that the effects of other antrhopogenic activities (e.g., land cover change) are underestimated and Spencer thinks that the effect of clouds on radiative forcing is similarly underestimated. Both of these topics are being debated in the community.

But to say that their argument over the details means that the basic science isn’t settled is like saying that the Bel Air can’t be a Chevy because it has fins.

You might want to check in with Dr. Curry again and see what she is up to.

And you might want to remember what Curry said the last time Eric checked in with her:
“What happens in the 21st century projections is that the global warming signal begins to dominate. We still have the freshening of the upper ocean, but the upper ocean is getting warmer because of a warmer atmosphere. And the precipitation starts to fall more as rain than snow. Rain falling on ice speeds the melting from above.”

Too bad good journalists who could have made their career showing the real depth of the story chose to remain on the sidelines as cheerleaders.

Yeah, it is too bad that Eric doesn’t give equal time to the flat earth society when he talks about earthquakes, or to the Discovery Institute when he discusses evolution.

There have been other times when small groups of loud people defended the consensus with great effect. The defenders of Lysenko, for instance.

Or those defending evolution. Or those defending plate tectonics. Or those defending the heliocentric universe.

The world was blessed by the unbaised “voice of ‘truth’” from pillar of morals and virtue, ““When you go and talk to any audience about climate, you hear them washing back at you the same crap over and over and over again. There’s no longer a shared reality on an issue like climate

“….even though the very existence of our civilization is threatened.”

What threatens civilization? Lack of transparency and deception; but mostly politics.

Even if they speak the truth, and they may be, who, with a brain, will listen to and believe these “leaders”? If you are a fraud in one facit of your life, what, but a fool would belive you in something greater?

The majority of people “debating” climate change are the conservative die-hards who hate liberals. The rest of the thinking world has moved on to the consequences of what is happening because of climate change.
And frankly I think it is awesome that Texas is being baked to a crisp, because there are so many conservative deniers down there. It seems only fair that the first in line to experience climate change are the people that refuse to acknowledge it.

My cousin just died from heat stroke here, and I didn’t hate him because he was a liberal. But I hate you, since you’re so compassionate toward everyone trying to survive in the killer heat in this area. Yeah, you’re opinion is really awesome, considering the fact there are literally millions of new people that have moved here since your side did such a great job with the economy that you bankrupted your states to where they had to move here to survive financially, and then survive the heat they’re not accustomed to. Maybe you can visit us “down here” and freeze with us in January, to match your cold, ignorant, liberal heart. Hippocrit.

Kerry,
Frankly you are a pathetic sick loser.
You do not know the difference between a heat wave and climate,and your hatred towards anyone not agreeing with you is disgusting and reflects a dangerous lack of emotional health or intellectual integrity.

You’d think, what with all the devastation & destruction of farms & forests & livelihoods from drought & fire, never mind 100+ temperatures in Oil Town USA, a rebranding to Climate Catastrophe might be more to the point.

The tobacco industry with their hired PR denialists was able to delay the recognition & acceptance of the science behind tobacco cancer for over 40 years by spewing disinformation & doubt amongst the less educated public. How many decades will the dirty fossil fuel industry with their hired PR denialists — some of the same from the tobacco debacle– will they delay the necessary action to combat anthropogenic climate change & the ensuing death & destruction & ruin from an increasingly likely climate holocaust by spewing lies & disinformation among the less informed fickle public?

If you haven’t already, survey Naomi & Erik’s book for some real eye-openers:

“And the Heartland Institute posts an article defending DDT by Bonner Cohen, the man who created EPA Watch for Philip Morris back in the mid-1990s.” [p. 271]

“But the Heartland’s activities are far more extensive, and reach back into the 1990s when they, too, were working with Philip Morris…. Philip Morris also used Heartland to distribute reports that they (Philip Morris) had commissioned…. Heartland Institute officials also met with members of Congress on behalf of the tobacco industry, organized “off-the-record” briefings, wrote and placed op-ed pieces, and organized radio interviews and letters to editors.” [pp. 233-34]

“The stunning extent of Philip Morris’s reach is encapsulated in a ten-page document listing policy payments that were made to various organizations. Besides the $50,000 to the Heartland Institute, there was $200,000 for TASSC, $125,000 for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, $100,000 for the American Enterprise Institute, and scores more.” [p. 234]

And for those who still don’t know, TASSC also started out as a front group for the tobacco industry:

“The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC) is a now-defunct, industry-funded PR front group run by the APCO Worldwide public relations firm. It worked to hang the label of “junk science” on environmentalists. Created in 1993, TASSC began as a front for Philip Morris, which was attempting to discredit ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) research as a long-term cause of increased cancer and heart problem rates in the community — especially among office workers and children living with smoking parents.[1] It advanced industry-friendly positions on a wide range of topics, including global warming, smoking, phthalates, and pesticides.”

There are are a lot of things that “especially conservative [American]white men” are afraid of these days:

“Final authorization of the funds for the construction of the space station is rumored to have been approved just a few years ago, after a long and failed Chinese diplomatic effort to negotiate access to the ISS. The U.S. Congress has long opposed cooperation with China in human spaceflight, and blocked efforts to discuss Chinese participation in the ISS. Other ISS partners, including the Europeans, the Canadians and the Russians expressed support for Chinese participation but did not openly challenge U.S. objections.”

Climate Variability is the short term issues: Things like ENSO, Madden-Julian Oscillation, the NAO, PDO, etc. Cycles and tele-connections that can impact short-term weather and climate (14 days to 13-18 months). Example: El Nino brings more rain to Southern CA, etc.

Climate Change is the longer term AGW sort of things that we’ve all been fighting about like a pair of drunken cousins who can’t stand each other at a family reunion for the last 15-20 year.

They ARE different phenomenon. They are semi-related, but in general, the folks working on one are NOT working on the other.

In my personal opinion, climate variability IS where we should be putting our money. Improving long lead forecasts will make a far greater impact (i.e Hurricane season forecast…drought outlooks, etc).

JohnD tries so hard to bring science facts into a conversation on a science blog and the conservative posters just continue to show the lack of objective reasoning.

I think I would be more accepting of the conservative narrative if they would focus more on not wanting to be forced to change their lifestyle because current human society is affecting the climate (maybe for the negative). Instead they try to attack the science, which is remarkably sound.

Does that mean they realize if humans were contributing to changing our climate, they couldn’t fight the lifestyle changes that governments would be compelled to impose?

I think that is a much better fight to fight.

It seems absurd (even without the thousands of peer reviewed scientific papers) to argue that current human society isn’t affect climate. What do they do when they drive around, just close their eyes? They really think millions of cars on the road and millions of factories and refineries are just omitting water vapor? And how can they say that when volcanoes give out C02 and other gases, that affects climate, but when cars and factories do it, the climate isn’t affected?

“It’s very difficult when we, as science teachers, are just trying to present scientific facts,” says Kathryn Currie, head of the [Los Alamitos High School’s] science department. And science educators around the country say such attacks are becoming all too familiar. They see climate science now joining evolution as an inviting target for those who accuse “liberal” teachers of forcing their “beliefs” upon a captive audience of impressionable children.”

“Evolution is still the big one, but climate change is catching up,” says Roberta Johnson, executive director of the National Earth Science Teachers Association (NESTA) in Boulder, Colorado. An informal survey this spring of 800 NESTA members found that climate change was second only to evolution in triggering protests from parents and school administrators. One teacher reported being told by school administrators not to teach climate change after a parent threatened to come to class and make a scene. Online message boards for science teachers tell similar tales…”

“There seems to be a lynch-mob hate against any teacher trying to teach climate change,” says Andrew Milbauer, an environmental sciences teacher at Conserve School, a private boarding school in Land O’Lakes, Wisconsin.”

“They are hierarchical in outlook, and tend to deny all manner of environmental risks. They often believe that climate science is part of a global conspiracy to impose a statist economy. And of course, they are often conservative white men like Jeffrey Barke, the Los Alamitos Unified School District board of education member who has placed this school at the center of attacks on accurate climate science teaching.”

Key quotes:
“They seem to be suggesting that there is some sort of conspiracy that involves global warming and back scratching that appears to be frankly just nuts,” says Jeff Ruch, a lawyer with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Steve Amstrup, senior scientist with a group called Polar Bears International, says Monnett wasn’t the only person to have seen those dead polar bears in the water. “But yet, the news that he was being investigated caused some people to right away jump to the conclusion that those observations may be flawed,” says Amstrup.

re: “The AGW movement is losing because they are, like the eugenics movement of 100 years ago, selling bs.”

Your feral gut-rants against the looming impacts of anthropogenic global warming, reminds us of a recent NPR story about Brain Bugs:

“When attacked, a skunk’s natural inclination is to turn around, lift its tail and spray a noxious scent. That works when a skunk faces a natural predator in the wild, but it’s not as helpful when faced with, let’s say, an oncoming car.”

“Although it’s impossible to say for sure when we might see an ice-free Arctic, the IPCC itself has acknowledged that its 2007 report may have painted too rosy a picture. “If you look at the scientific knowledge things do seem to be getting progressively worse,” said Rajendra Pachauri, IPCC chair, in an interview reported by The New York Times shortly after the report’s release. “So you’d better start with the interventions even earlier. Now.”

Climate change is the result of external effects which are not internalized by product prices. The latter ones fail in their role as a market regulating mechanism. Thus, trading companies should be forced to point out the amount of CO2, which was caused by the products, they sell.

[...] there’s a significant debate about this fundamental view of climate science is just wrong,” Houston Chronicle science reporter Eric Berger wrote last week in reference to the Rasmussen poll. “If you disbelieve me, you should get out and [...]